Castle Rock Recap- “Habeas Corpus”

Alright episode 2 of Castle Rock jumps us back in time as Warden Lacy’s narration walks us through the dark and bloody past of the eponymous town. There’s a great tracking shot that takes us though Lacy’s own home’s history with violence and death. Lacy reveals that he was aware of the various mysterious goings on around Castle Rock. I caught a reference to Cujo as one of the past horrors, I’m sure there were other references but I missed them. Anyway, Lacy reveals that he was a religious man, and he asked God how he could prevent the evil from continuing. “God’s” answer was to catch the “Devil” and lock him away, never letting him see the light of day again. Apparently, the Kid is Lacy’s devil.

The Kid actually got to do some more stuff besides “be creepy”. It’s revealed that he did not escape his cell and murder every guard on the block as it appeared at the end of episode 1. Instead, it was Zalewski’s (our well-meaning guard) nerves getting the better of him. Or it was some kind of psychic attack or something. Reeves attempts to disappear the Kid by sticking him in solitary with a not so nice looking Nazi inmate, but this fails when the Nazi guy is found dead, apparently of super advanced cancer.

On the Henry side of things, Henry begins to attempt to dig into Lacy’s past and whoever could’ve asked for him from inside of Shawshank but his past in the town holds him back. Lacy’s widow tosses him out after discovering who he is. And later on he encounters Jackie Torrance (who shares a last name with the doomed Torrance’s of The Shining), who also appears to have an interest in the ugly side of Castle Rock’s history, whenever it’s from some kind of morbid fascination or just being nosey, time will tell. With Zalewski’s help, Henry manages to get photographic evidence of the Kid’s existence.

Finally, we got some more backstory on mysterious drug-abusing, sweat shirt smelling lady from episode 1. Her name’s Molly, she’s quite the failure, she believes she’s psychic, and she’s been stalking Henry since they were both kids. However there seems to be some truth to her claims. In a flashback to the night of Henry disappearance, Molly hides under her blankets when a sheriff’s deputy asks her some questions about where Henry might be. He makes special mention of how cold it’s getting outside and also how warm it is in her room. After the deputy leaves, Molly lowers her blankets, and we’re able to see her breath. Somehow she does have some kind of connection to Henry. Does that mean by extension she’s connected to the Kid too? I don’t know.

I thought episode 2 was pretty good. Overall I like the show so far. There are some solid mysteries being built up. I’m curious to see how they play out.